by Rachel George, USA TODAY Sports

by Rachel George, USA TODAY Sports

In a 2.5-hour interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o answered questions late Friday about his online relationship with a woman who never existed.

The reported death of 22-year-old Lennay Kekua from leukemia in September became a touching part of Te'o's story this season. But a Deadspin report released Wednesday revealed Kekua's very existence to be a hoax, one Te'o says was perpetrated by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. The 22-year-old California man, who leads the band at a church where his father is a pastor, was suggested to be responsible for the scheme in Deadspin's article, and an ESPN report confirmed that before Te'o's interview.

During the course of the interview, Te'o answered many questions that arose as soon as the news broke this week. Among them:

Who perpetuated stories that Te'o met Kekua in person?

Te'o admitted that he led his father to believe he had physically met Kekua, although he repeatedly denied to ESPN that any meeting had happened. It was Brian Te'o, Manti's father, who largely supplied the information for an October article in the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune that chronicled the relationship.

What records could Te'o provide to support the existence of the relationship? What evidence was provided to Notre Dame to support that this was a hoax?

Even after Schaap's interview with Te'o, this remains unclear. Schapp said he viewed direct messages between Te'o and Tuiasosopo in which Tuiasosopo admits to staging the prank. Te'o also showed Schaap text messages on his phone in which he, his parents and Kekua discussed scripture.

But ESPN's reporting gives no further indication of what records were used in the investigation and does not seem to be supported by Schaap viewing the records himself. It is not clear whether Te'o provided records to support a relationship that he says occurred only over the phone from April 28 until he believed Kekua had died Sept. 12.

In the transcript of the interview released by ESPN, no questions are included about what physical information Te'o provided to Notre Dame during the investigation. Te'o did say that an investigator asked for "a picture and any evidence that I had," but it does not seem he shared that with Schaap.

Why not visit Kekua at any point when she was allegedly in the hospital?

This was perhaps most difficult to understand, and Schaap addressed it with Te'o more than once. According to what Te'o believed of Kekua, she had been in a car accident April 28, in a coma until mid-May and then diagnosed with leukemia.

According to the linebacker, she did not leave the hospital until the day before her supposed Sept. 12 death. But he never went to meet her in person.

"It never really crossed my mind," he told Schaap. "I don't know. I was in school."

Asked a little later about it, Te'o said, "I was in school. I was in the middle of finals. I was going home. And I was going to try."

Why did Te'o continue to speak of her after realizing this might have been a hoax?

Confusion, Te'o said.

In his news conference Wednesday, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Te'o received a phone call Dec. 6 from the number he believed to be Kekua's and was greeted by a voice on the line that he believed to be hers. He thought she had died in September, and Swarbrick said Te'o was unnerved to learn she had not.

Te'o said in the weeks between that phone call and his revelation to Notre Dame on Dec. 26 that something was amiss, he was trying to figure out whether Kekua was alive or whether people he thought to be her family were pulling a prank on him.

It's for that reason that he didn't let on to the media that anything was different.

"I'm still trying to figure it out at that time. I'm trying to do my own thing," Te'o told ESPN. "Trying to figure out my way. Trying to answer questions, and I come up to the conclusion after she tells me, 'No, it's the Lennay that I am,' and blah, blah, blah. Because I kept telling her, like, 'Well, the Lennay I know is not you. OK?' So like I said before, the Lennay I knew is dead. She died on Sept. 12th."

While he sorted it out, Te'o answered questions about her. According to Chicago Tribune reporter Brian Hamilton, two days after Te'o learned that the woman he believed to be his girlfriend might not be dead, he said, "I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer."

What is the relationship to Ronaiah Tuiasosopo?

According to Te'o, his only meeting with Tuaisosopo came during the weekend of the USC game on Nov. 24. Te'o had asked to meet a little girl named Pookah, who he believed to be Kekua's cousin and who had more of an aunt-niece type relationship.

Tuiasosopo brought Pookah to meet Te'o, but the girl said little.

Te'o said he had had a few interactions with Tuiasosopo over Twitter through the years.

Why wasn't Te'o more suspicious?

After meeting Kekua on Facebook, Te'o said he reached out to some friends to ask if they knew her. When they said they did, he accepted that.

"I assumed that, you know, if she's real, then that means she's real," he said.

Te'o detailed several times when the two planned to meet â?? once in Hawaii, once in San Diego â?? but each time, there was a reason it fell through.

What is his relationship history?

Te'o said he had had other serious relationships, but did not indicate whether they were online, as his relationship with Kekua was.